There was something wrong about the boy's eyes; they were cold and seemed to be glowing as he stared with a questioning look at the picture of his so-called arch foe. The profile snapshot from a "Weird Jobs Quarterly" magazine gazed into the distance, and the blue-eyed, black-haired child was smiling innocently.
"We're enemies, but I haven't even met you in real life." In a way, Hugh envied this phantom, the one who had never become a celebrity ghost like his father. Of course, his father hadn't seen the need to develop his son's skills like Vlad had done. "Why do I hate…and pity you?"
The silver-haired young man stood and plodded over to his door and activated his locks, including the anti-ghost shield so that there wouldn't be any unwanted, invisible visitors. With the perimeters secure, he could unearth to the stolen goods, which were hidden under a pile of dirty laundry.
Hugh opened the photo album and stared at the pictures plastered to the pages: the first, three teens. All were screaming as they went over a giant drop on a roller coaster; he could easily pick out his father because of the family chin, delicate but well-defined. There was also Jack Fenton and his future wife, Maddie.
"Thank you for not marrying him," Hugh whispered to the red-headed girl, "I wouldn't be the same as I am now if you had," he turned his attention to the picture below that one of his father and Jack Fenton, "And you, I curse you for these powers, and yet I thank you for them as well."
He turned about halfway through book to the photo of a picture of his father again, only this time his hair was silver and his face was covered in hideous zits. It was after this that the pictures of Vlad, Maddie, and Jack ceased in number and then began to be replaced by photos of his father's many successes.
Another few pages and the subject switched again, now it was a young Daniel Fenton and his sister Jasmine; five pages were all it took to summarize their childhood. Hugh threw this album to the ground and uncovered another; it was titled: Danny Phantom.
This was Hugh's only clue into the true life of the Phantom, unbiased from his father's comments, that is. He opened the book and found what he was looking for, a short document written by the ghost-boy himself; it was a letter written directly to Vlad, an angry letter telling him to stop hitting on his mom, stop trying to kill his father, and explain why he refused to use his powers for selfish reasons.
After this page came many labeled pictures documenting Danny Phantom's powers and abilities, as well as a couple of pictures of a young girl dressed in purple and black and an African-American boy with a strange hat, glasses and an old-fashioned PDA.
The last picture in the album was a wedding photo of Danny Fenton and his wife, Samantha, looking happily at the camera as they displayed two plain, gold rings.
Hugh threw that album to the floor on top of the other and then opened his nightstand's drawer; he pulled out another picture, one he had secretly scanned from his father's files during one of the tests. It showed a stressed-out boy with blue eyes and scraggly black hair talking nervously on a cell-phone.
He dropped the photo back into his drawer as someone knocked on the door, covering up the albums as he walked to the door and unlocked it.
"Yeah?"
"Um hi…uh, Hugh!" Ian smiled nervously up at the taller youth, "Your dad sent me here because, well, he said he wanted to train me personally, so you'll be taking over my student…Annie DuVale. We've been doing a lot of training, about three one-hour sessions per day, so she's ready for some more advanced stuff, okay?"
The eyes of the taller boy suddenly changed to a bright, shining red, and Ian took that as a dismissal. Hugh shut the door behind him and locked it; then, without a second thought, floated down the hall floor in an intangible form. "New student, eh?"
"Oh…my god, that bloody thing is even more freakin' annoying than my old alarm clock!" Annie stared at her new trainer, already transformed to his ghost image, which leered over her waking face.
"Yes, well it's time to get up Ann; we've got a lot of work to do today!"
YAY! I've finally seen "Bitter Relations" I know now how Vlad came to be and how Danny first met him…sorry, I pretty much just got cable so now…I'm happy! Special thanks to my reviewers, you guys get pixie stix and Snickers! Yay, and that's directly from the Halloween Bag!